Visiting Horses

Visiting Horses

Before I was caught thrashing in the internet, 
I used to walk out to the barn at night to visit horses.
There were several over the years, they were all the same.
I would cross the dark yard, over grass or snow, 
Over the shadows of trees thrown by the moon.
I would swing up over the bar gate like I was in the rodeo,
The pigeons cooing like the poor boiling water.
I took a good minute for my eyes to adjust.
At first it was just the silhouettes of derelict equipment,
The feed wagon with its chute wired up like a boxer's jaw,
The dinosauric auger with its brontosaurus neck,
All long ago broken down for parts across the Midwest
Like the debris field of a space disaster.
Finally I could see the woodcut of her body in the dark.
She was trying to understand what I was doing there.
So rare for her to be visited at such a late hour.
Hard for her to get even her huge head around that.
It always ended in her coming walking towards me
To see what it was I wanted. I wanted only to feel
The warm puffs of breath from her nostrils 
Like checking the heat coming off a radiator,
To tug on the tough rubbery skin of her chin, 
Then feed her a handful of oats for her trouble.
Now, nights, I reach for my blacked out phone,
Touch it awake, fill both my eyes full of its light. 
There are no horses in my life anymore, fewer stars.
But I can remember those nights I came back
From visiting her, slipping quietly back into the house
In which everyone I loved was asleep
And lay in bed thinking of her standing out 
There in the dark, probably wondering what 
The hell that had all been about.